Rupert Murdoch's Plans for Net News Control

Murdoch's plan for web pay walls 'raises questions of anti-trust law'

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Talks with other publishers to introduce charging on news websites will undoubtedly attract the attention of competition authorities, warns UK expert

Murdoch admits delay in introducing newspaper website charges

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Murdoch: pay walls a "work in progress". Photograph: Saul Loeb/Getty Images

Questions over competition in the media industry have been raised by Rupert Murdoch's admission that News Corporation is talking to other organisations about its plans to introduce web charging.

Murdoch this week admitted that it is proving harder than expected to introduce charges for readers browsing his newspaper websites and that News Corp may miss a target of next June for the introduction of so-called "pay walls" at papers including the Sun, the Times, the New York Post and the Australian.

The initiative, which has divided the industry, is an attempt to recalibrate the business model for struggling print media businesses.

Three months ago, Murdoch announced that he intended to introduce website charges by the end of News Corporation's financial year, which runs to June 2010. Some rivals, including the New York Times, are planning similar moves.

He declined to comment on the reasons for any delay except to indicate that he was talking to rival publishers, including the Telegraph group in Britain. "It's a work in progress and there's a huge amount of work going on," Murdoch said.

But Murdoch's discussions could breach UK anti-trust regulations, according to a competition law specialist. Alan Davis of legal firm Pinsent Masons warned that if the conversations went as far as talking about pricing, then regulators would almost certainly get involved.

"Competitors should not be discussing business strategy for charging for online content and should certainly not be discussing pricing," he said. "Be under no doubt the competition authorities would be interested about why, and what, conversations are taking place. It is the nature of regulators to be suspicious."

However, Davis said that without knowing the exact nature of the conversations between News Corporation and the Telegraph, it was difficult to point to specific regulatory issues.